Black Studies
by LenkaJeneva
Summary: As the heir to the Black family, Harry had to have certain… lessons… in order to accept this position. And, well, Sirius is "Lord Black" and he has a way of making everything interesting… Should be fun.


**Black Studies**

**Summary: As the heir to the Black family, Harry had to have certain… lessons… in order to accept this position. And, well, Sirius is "Lord Black" and he has a way of making everything interesting… Should be fun.**

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**Okay, so, before anyone says anything, I'm really just writing this story so that I can remember my Western Civilization info better once my Final comes around - I found that if I write things down, I'll be able to remember them better later. So, I decided to twist Harry Potter with my history class and tah-dah! So, I'm sorry if there's anything in here, or if it gets too lecturey or anything controversial, this is just my own type of studying, and I do find this interesting. So, here goes nothing.**

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Sirius tapped his foot impatiently as he stared at the bleak brown door in front of him.

Harry was lazy. He'd raised a lazy child. Harry hadn't gotten up yet.

He tapped his foot once again, before moving his hand up as if to knock (or roughly push open) the door before pulling it back quickly and spinning around on the balls of his feet and walking (more like stomping) back to his room, before, once again, making up his mind and spinning back around towards Harry's room.

Why had he done this again?

Oh, right.

Sirius knew that the small ball of guilt that surged up wouldn't go away – he'd practically stolen James' child – but he had to do it.

Only a few years before hand, he took Harry. Of course, Harry was only seventeen months old, Sirius was on the run from the Ministry of Magic, and everyone wanted him dead (and, more than less likely, were still screaming for his blood).

The only way to make sure that they couldn't find him (and he could keep Harry safe and sound in his own little hide-away), was to make Harry not… Harry. He couldn't allow the child to keep his namesake; he couldn't be Harry James Potter. In order for his plan to work, Harry James Potter had to be dead.

He'd given Harry his own family magic.

Harry didn't care, he was only seven years old now, and it was about now that Sirius should start giving him lessons about the family (at least, the lessons that Sirius deemed necessary to pass on… such as all the history lessons that, if left unattended, Harry would never learn, or would sleep through while at Hogwarts… not that Binns went into this type of history).

Sirius stared at the door consternation.

Harry wasn't a Potter now.

He was a Black, just like Sirius, he was Sirius' son, he was –

"Dad?" He blinked (slightly stupidly) as the (stupid, bleak, brown) door before him opened. Harry stood in the door, staring at him in bemusement, "Are you finished pacing the corridor or do you want to stay out here for a few more minutes?"

Sirius opened his mouth before shutting once again, thinking twice of the language that he should be using in front of a seven year old (the last thing that he needed was the wizarding world screaming for his blood because he taught the boy-who-lived to have a potty mouth) and gave the child a hard stare. "We've got to talk," he decided to keep it nice and simple, nice and –

Did Harry have to look so horrified?

"I'm not going to kill you, you know…" he muttered dryly as Harry bounded back into the room and sat in his chair… backwards, mind you. Sirius gave him the basics of 'how to be a gentleman' that every heir was given, but he never did enforce the lessons, it was just a 'if you have to' or 'in emergencies' situation.

Harry gave him a look, that, if Sirius took the time to describe it, it would have merely meant: _I know you aren't you idiot, now tell me what has your feathers all ruffled and then we'll talk_.

For all that Harry looked like James, he'd managed to pick up Sirius' mannerisms to a tee – the wizarding world was going to get a heart attack when Harry went to Hogwarts.

All the same, Sirius felt a small amount of pride that Harry looked up to and copied _him_.

Then again, there weren't many other people to copy except for his muggle schoolteachers and he hated his teachers, _"On principle"_ Harry had once told him.

"We need to get started on your lessons," Sirius continued taking a seat on Harry's bed.

The face that Harry made was enough to tell Sirius what the kid was thinking, but, all the same, Harry opened his mouth, "But I already thought that we did all the etiquette classes," Harry said, his nose curled in disgust as he thought about said classes.

Sirius didn't like 'em either, but no need to get all upset over spilled milk.

"Well," Sirius began, contemplating whether or not he should run. Harry complained enough about his schoolwork to make him nervous, "We've got to begin our history lessons."

As expected, Harry stared at him blankly through his dark bangs, "You're joking," he asked, "right?"

"Err…" Could he get away with saying that yes, this was one big joke? "No…"

"But- but–" Harry sputtered, looking completely lost, "I _already_ have a history class! At school!"

"Unfortunately, I've looked at your schooling schedule for the next few years, and, you aren't supposed learn this until Secondary School at the least–"

"Then let me learn it in Secondary School!" Harry cried out, still quite adamant about staying in the Muggle school system, he was more than a bit worried about going off to Hogwarts in a few years and never seeing Sirius again, but, as Sirius told him quite often, he needed to learn to control his magic before he killed someone.

Sirius slowly shook his head, "Hogwarts doesn't teach it either, it's much more of Muggle history, surprisingly, and Binns focus' on Goblin rebellions a tad too much."

"And why do you need to give me lessons on Muggle history?" Harry snapped, upset.

It really had been too much to hope for when Sirius had told Harry this that Harry would think about this calmly and rationally – Sirius knew that, although Harry did like reading books, it wasn't the history books, and school books that Lily had loved, he preferred fantasy. Anything remotely school life and he got… rather inconsolable.

"It's rather common for Pureblood families to learn about certain parts of history like… for example the Roman Empire," Sirius said, sitting up. "Our family mostly focus' on the Greeks, like your Aunt Andromeda – you remember her? – was named after the daughter of Cassiopeia – which is another Aunt of mine – who was saved by her future husband Perseus from a sea monster. Perseus and Andromeda are also both constellations in the northern hemisphere. Then again, Perseus was also the son of Zeus and Danae."

Harry stared blankly at Sirius for all of ten seconds before blinking slowly. "How did you memorize all that?" Harry asked in amazement.

Sirius shrugged, "It's been forced into my brain for the last twenty-some years," he said, nonchalantly.

"Then again," he said, with a bright grin, "in a few months, you and I are going to go in depth in the certain parts of Astronomy and add that to the schedule. We'll look at the stars, study mythology, and the Greeks and Romans."

Harry groaned pathetically.

"Personally," Sirius continued, obviously deciding to forgo his guilt of forcing this on his son and, instead, decided to take a sick pleasure out of torturing the kid with these facts, "I'm named after Sirius, the Dog Star, as you know. _And_ it's the brightest star in the sky."

So he was a little proud of the fact and the irony, shoot him why don't you?

"How about I explain a bit about where your name came from?"

Harry snorted, "You just chose a name where it was different, but I could keep my regular nickname so that it wasn't all confusing."

"That is one reason, but," Harry looked up, a bit confused, "the Blacks have a tradition of naming their children – more importantly, their heirs – after, mostly stars, but also people in Greek and Roman history and mythology. I took the name Hadrian from the Roman Emperor Hadrian, who happened to be Trajans successor to the thrown."

Harry scrunched his nose together as he thought about that, "So you had to name me after some dead guy?" He asked, intrigued.

"Yes," Sirius said simply, "just be glad he was a powerful dead guy, I could've chosen someone stupid, like Nero – he committed suicide after practically destroying the Julio-Claudian dynasty in Rome." Harry stared at him blankly. "He was insane," Sirius put it simply, "If I had to guess – too much inbreeding."

"Like the Malfoys?" Harry asked innocently, sending the man a wicked looking smirk as he spun his chair around on its axis.

Sirius snorted, smoothing the wrinkles out in his shirt as he shook his head in amusement, "Like the Malfoys," he acquitted easily, smirking slightly, he'd taught the boy well.

"But," he said, getting back on topic, "Hadrian was the third in line in the Flavian Dynasty. He strengthened the defenses in Britain–"

Harry sat up abruptly, "Wait a minute," he said, holding up a hand, Sirius had to keep his laughter in check as Harry showed some sort of interest for the 'stupid school stuff,' "Why did he strengthen the defenses of Britain?"

He smiled sadly at the seven year old, living in Romania, while it had its benefits, would practically insure that Harry didn't consider Britain as his homeland. Sure, he'd heard stories upon stories, but he hadn't actually grown up there, it was just a story to him that was all…

Sirius sat up straighter in his bed though, grinning at the kid, "This interesting you?" he asked teasingly, wiggling his brows, "but," he sighed, "I suppose not, alright, I'm off – I've got dinner to prepare and things to do."

"Wait, Dad! Daddy! Where are you going?"

Sirius, very kindly and obnoxiously (if that was even possible), smiled at the boy as he turned to walk out of the room. "We've got to eat," he said, "and you don't want to listen to this stuff, so I'm off, have fun attempting to play exploding snap by yourself."

"Dad!"

Sirius smiled, life was good.


End file.
